The Year That Never Was
by OnsenTamago
Summary: An AU fanfiction series in 13 chapters, detailing the further adventures of The Doctor based on an alternate ending to Series 3 of the TV show, whereby The Master is taken onboard the TARDIS and watched over by The Doctor.
1. Chapter One Leaving The Nest

**4.1. Leaving The Nest.**

A second would have been all it took.

With a pull of the trigger, the man the world knew as Harold Saxon, Prime Minister, would be dead to the people he presided over. With a lunatic's smile, he egged on Francine Jones, the mother of the planet's saviour – Martha Jones.

"Do it." He taunted her, teasing not so much in the knowledge that, as a Time Lord, he could easily regenerate, but because he knew that Francine simply didn't have it in her. What did a divorced mother of three from London know of death? What did any human know of the chaos caused by acting in a second to take a life, or the lives of millions? His eyes burning with hate and his head pounding in a march, Harold Saxon stared into Francine's mind and saw humanity in all its weakness. He had them as slaves, puppets, pawns – The engineers of his new Time Lord empire. He had conquest and power within his grasp! Harold Saxon was the lord and master of all.

And the Master he always was. It was him _all along_. Nobody would stop him this time.

As he watched the barrel of the gun lower, his grin became a sneer as the weeping, defeated, divorced mother of three from London was comforted by a man who knew all about chaos. About death. About murder. Nobody would have stopped him, because nobody understood him. Nobody understood the rage, the regret and the loneliness of survival, other than those strong enough to go on living.

At the end of time itself, the Master was the one who lived. But from the ashes of the devastation, the Doctor survived.

'Sod's law.' The Master chuckled to himself as the Doctor led him into the TARDIS, still stuck as an ancient police box after all these years. Relieved to be out of handcuffs, the Master turned to familiarise himself with the console, only to have his hands slapped away.

"Don't even think about it." The Doctor commanded, calmly plotting the course for his ship's descent back to Earth, following UNIT's rescue fleet, who had picked up his friends from the Valiant. After asking Martha Jones to spend a year wandering the globe telling stories, he could not wish for her to continue putting her own dreams on hold. She was an aspiring doctor herself and with the planet Earth recently becoming a hot-spot for extra-terrestrial attacks, the Doctor knew that the world could use as many Martha Joneses as possible. The rest of the Jones family didn't need, nor ask, to be dragged into the Master's scheme and they deserved another chance to enjoy life. As for Captain Jack Harkness...

For a few moments, the Doctor paused in thought. It wasn't as though Jack wasn't welcome to join him in the TARDIS, as two more eyes on the Master would be fantastic. But before the Utopia hubbub, the only other time Jack was a member of the crew was when Rose was still here. And it would just be... awkward. Laughing at himself, the Doctor shook his head and cast away past regrets from his mind for the time being and focused on his new 'companion', for want of a much, _much_ better term.

"You're going to need me for more than a pet, you know." The Master scolded the Doctor, pointing at him from across the console.

"You're absolutely right," the Doctor beamed back with a nod to the floor, "pass me that toolbox by your foot please."

His initially optimistic expression turning to a grimace, the Master lifted up the tin toolbox and began thumbing through it.

"What do you need, the hammer or the Paltimuud thermometer? The ball of wool or the 25-year-old bag of Jelly Babies?"

"What I wanted was the toolbox. I didn't ask you to go looking through it."

"Well I figured whilst I'm on board, I'd streamline your little operation. It'd be more efficient if you told me what it was exactly that you wanted, I'd then look in your toolbox and I'd pass it to you."

"Right then, pass me a red 'Happy Birthday' balloon and then _efficiently_ close my toolbox and help me _streamline_ my little operation by keeping a lid on that trap of yours whilst I concentrate, got it?"

Rolling his eyes, the Master stretched the balloon and as soon as the Doctor wasn't looking, shot it directly at his ear. Clenching his teeth and breathing in sharply, he looked back up at the Master standing in the centre of the massive and otherwise-empty TARDIS console room.

"Wasn't me." The Master told him, shrugging his shoulders and whistling. A second was all it took for the balloon to strike him and for a new regret to eat away at the Doctor's all-too-kind conscience.

-

"Best deals, brand new!"

"The Big Issue!"

"Jesus loves you!"

One-by-one, street vendors stopped Sally Sparrow during her walk to Tottenham Court Road station. She took a knock-off designer scarf that was far too long, a charity magazine and a pamphlet on Christianity.

Sally didn't believe in God, but she wanted to believe in a Heaven more than ever nowadays. She never purchased a copy of 'The Big Issue' before now, but the homeless needed a reason to believe in the kindness of strangers in times like these. And she didn't like to buy from bootleggers, but she was only earning so much by working in her boyfriend's video and DVD shop.

'_Ex_-boyfriend damn it Sally Sparrow!' She chastised herself as she passed through the ticket barrier. There wasn't anything particularly wrong with Larry. He was always nice and... well, he was _nice_. And nice men are rare nowadays. So yes, Larry was nice, but there was only so much she could take of going to the cinema together, only for him to spoil the ending for her halfway through. Then, it was never enough that they watched the film on DVD with Larry's own armchair commentary on the plot holes, the deleted scenes and the bloopers, but she had to watch the film again the next night with the DVD commentary. Here, the actors and directors basically pat themselves on the back for all they'd accomplished and how great their work was, bragging to their audience, so many people who hadn't accomplished all that they had.

Okay, so there were _some_ things wrong with Larry, but Sally reminded herself that deep down, it wasn't him. It was her. And that wasn't just a cliché – Sally Sparrow had her own eccentricities.

"Mind the gap. Mind the gap. Mind the gap."

Since the day when angels whisked her best friend away to 1920, Sally Sparrow had started to grow increasingly wary of the ever-expanding world around her. It was as though the 21st century had finally arrived, but the human race wasn't ready. What do you expect? How do you prepare for demon statues, or a world where the Prime Minister orders a floating alien ball to shoot the U.S. President?

Or even time travel? Where would Sally start understanding the science of so much science fiction? Where did the phone box come from and where did it go? And most curious to her – Where in the worlds is the Doctor? Finding the answers to these questions was her new ambition, but they were out of her reach. When Harold Saxon disappeared, so did the Doctor and nothing on Earth could find him again.

There were groups, practically fan clubs of the Doctor, scattered throughout the world. Over Christmas, Sally took a flight to San Francisco and met other people with tales to tell. They stood around a fire under a highway bridge in the bitter December cold and shared stories throughout the night. Stories of aliens building the Empire State Building, the Yeti in the London Underground and the subliminal messages in the new Hollywood action flick, 'Bad Wolf'. Sally told them about the Weeping Angels, her DVD collection and a phone box that's bigger on the inside than the outside, but that was nothing new. Regardless, they listened and like her, they wanted to believe in a man who can change his face, travel through time and saves people from alien conquest, as stupid as it sounded. It was what the world needed right now though, someone to believe in.

And this was Sally Sparrow's life now, a sudden extension on her own reality full of adventure, danger and the unknown. She wanted to learn more about the universe and she would give anything to explore it. Unfortunately, the Tube would only take her as far as Edgware. Hardly Spiridon, Mondas or Rax...

"Raxa... Raxacoric..." Sally muttered to herself as she shuffled through her coat pockets for her notebook.

"Mind the gap. Mind the gap. Mind the gap."

Sally was so engrossed in her thoughts and theories that she didn't notice the track beneath the train flash with a radiant blue light for a second, leaving a gaseous aura that seemed oddly attracted to her. As the train jolted to start the few minutes' journey home, whispers from invisible lips tried to become screams beneath Sally Sparrow's feet. From the bottom of the dark chasm over the edge of the platform, they desperately tried to call out to her. Their efforts were futile – The darkness was restraining their reaches and throttling their cries. The train shot through the tunnel and briefly, there was a howl and then silence, save for the slow footsteps of a white-cloaked figure on the platform.

-

**USERNAME:** angelshavethebox

**PASSWORD: --  
**

**POST TITLE:** Ghosts in the mirror?

Hey,

Long-time lurker, first-time poster.

My name's Larry and i live in London with my ex (dontevenblink on these forums before she got banned). I figured you would be the best ppl to ask about this. There's not really anyone else i can talk to about it, cos... well... i don't leave my room anymore. I keep sat in the corner at my desk with my laptop cos this way they can't watch me. I mean i have my back to the mirror lol.

Ever since Harold Saxon and the Doctor left earth, i keep seeing ppl in my bedroom mirror. It sounds stupid i know, but this is the TRUTH! Its always the same ppl and they're in pain, some even dead ('I see dead people' ROFL :D ) But seriously, it's creeping me way out. And they look at me all the time. AND I can HEAR them! Kids crying, evil laughs and then, theres the Doctor. He's never hurt by the looks of things but he keeps knocking on the other side of my mirror and he's waving and calling but he's the one guy i can never hear! But he's so calm. When the visions of the tortured ppl vanish, he's standing there looking like he means business. As though, he's gonna save them and then he just starts trying to get some attention.

I dunno though, i know what dontevenblink would do if she knew. I dont think she can hear them. I keep the door locked when she's here and i don't tell her about this. She can't see this rite? Can any of you guys help me? THIS IS NOT A J/K AND I AM NOT A TROLL!!11 PLZ HELP ME!!

Thanx

angelshavethebox

Larry Nightingale clicked the 'Submit' button. He felt relieved, but his throat clenched up before he could let out a breath. His eyes were strained from insomnia and his palms were clammy from the humidity of his boarded-up bedroom. His shirt was drenched, reeking of sweat and sauces. The wood over the windows had been there since Christmas. Whilst Sally had been away in San Francisco, he managed to have his first conversation with one of the people in the mirror. She told Larry that her name used to be Emma, but now, nobody had names.

"Why would we have names now?" Emma asked him, full of innocence, "people stopped looking for us a long time ago."

"But what about him?" Larry questioned, crawling quickly towards her from his 'safe place', "what about the Doctor? He can help you, save you, what about him?"

"Oh, he's sorry, he's so sorry."

Suddenly, Larry's senses went into a psychotic rampage. Nightmarish visions flashed in the mirror right before his eyes. He watched a tall, slender figure clad in perfect white stand over Emma from behind, expressionless. Tears burst from Larry's eyes as he struggled backwards. He could hear Emma choke and sob, but that was shortly drowned out by a drumming. Over and over again in his head. The same beat. It raced faster still as Larry begged someone to help Emma before there was a shriek and the glass windows exploded into a thousand shards. Each one seemed to hang in the balance for a moment, before falling to the ground so ungracefully. Larry rolled onto his back and stared up at the spinning ceiling, choking with every breath on his own spit.

The entire episode was over in seconds, but it had haunted Larry ever since. Those moments spent watching and listening to the suffering of others were all that Larry could think about. It was his unwanted obsession. And the strangest part of it all?He didn't save them. This experience proved to Larry that Sally's fixation with the Doctor was a lie. He was no saviour.

The sound of drums. He could hear them again, like a command. _Smash it!_ It told him. _Smash the mirror and kill the galaxy's false idol._ Larry had heard these instructions before, but he was superstitious enough. Seven. That's what they say, seven years bad luck. Were these the only paths his life could take? A life spent living in fear of the ghosts in his bedroom mirror, or seven years bad luck? In a trance, Larry staggered towards the mirror and glared into it. Seven years bad luck? If he allowed the Doctor to escape, would he and Sally even live to see seven years?

Running a finger around her teacup, Sally listened at the door of Larry's bedroom, unsure of what to say or do anymore. It was the middle of the night and she had been woken up by the sound of sobbing through her bedroom wall. The sobbing had halted, but it's not always the crying that keeps her up at night. Sally had kept a diary of all the recent happenings in Larry's bedroom and his behaviour was like nothing she had experienced before. On Monday, he was wailing like a beaten animal, whilst on Tuesday it sounded as though he was throwing his own body to the floor. Wednesday, he was laughing and Thursday, he started scratching meaningless words and strange symbols into his bedroom window. 'Whitecoats', 'M is for hiM', 'Watch your step'... None of it made sense. There wasn't much that scared Sally Sparrow nowadays, but Larry was the stuff of nightmares and however cruel it sounded, she felt compelled to keep him under lock and key. It wasn't as though Larry ever left his bedroom anyway, so she reassured herself that this must be what he wants. Each night, in the few hours when he was asleep, Sally would sneak food, drink and a DVD from the local rental shop into his room. She waited patiently in the hope that Larry would cry himself to sleep, but it never seemed to end. Letting out a slightly frustrated sigh, Sally gingerly tapped on the door.

"L... Larry?" She stammered, "it's me... Do you want some water?"

Larry continued weeping, now groaning as Sally could hear him writhe and squirm on the carpet. Inside, he gripped a piece of scrap paper and a marker pen, and began scribbling in a daze.

"Larry? If you're awake... Please..." Sally struggled with her words, "just let me come in."

Sally unlocked the door with trepidation and opened it a jar. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Larry's eyes, glowing like a cat's in the darkness. She gasped for a second and within that moment, she watched as Larry's body was catapulted across the room and into the door, slamming it in her face! The teacup smashed on the floor and Sally fell backwards, grasping the banister for support. Shaken, her eyes weren't sure where to look. How did Larry do that?

_Did _Larry do that? Sally felt nauseous with fear, her fingers crawled through the carpet, dragging her backwards and away from Larry's bedroom door, her only barrier between whatever now dwells in there with him

Suddenly, a sheet of slightly crumpled paper was slipped from under the door. 'Get a grip Sally!' she told herself as she slowly crawled over to pick up the note and then immediately jumped back and into the bathroom opposite. She only needed to look at the paper for a few moments to recognise it as nothing more than another of Larry's little nuggets of nonsense. Holding her left temple, Sally ran her other hand through her messy, greasy hair and noticed something peculiar in the mirror. In her hand was the note and on the note was written...

_'Sally Sparrow'._

Sally covered her lips with her free hand as she continued reading.

_'Dear Sally Sparrow,_

_Find Harold Saxon. Open the door and mind the gap._

_Love from,_

_The Doctor._

_P.S. P.T.O... --'_

Sally turned the paper over and found a familiar warning.

_'... DUCK!'_

She didn't need to be told twice this time and fell to her knees as something shot over her head, hit the bathroom mirror, shattering the image of another white-cloaked visage, and landed in the sink. Sally caught her breath as she knew there was only one direction that the object could've been fired from. Slowly, she began to turn her head before spinning round, pleasantly surprised to be faced with an old friend she'd not seen in a while.

"... Got any biscuits left?" Larry asked her, dishevelled and covered in bruises. Sally could only managed a relieved, yet utterly confused, laugh as she staggered back to her feet. Guided by the wall, Larry dashed over to help her up to the sink. Sally looked down to see an airless red balloon circling the plug hole and picked it up.

"Where did this come from?" She asked as Larry scratched away at his beard, now much bushier since before his self-imposed isolation.

"The Doctor gave it to me, he said to-" Larry was cut off by a loud 'what?' from Sally and realised that he'd probably have a lot of explaining to do. Only he wasn't the best man to do it.

And at that moment, a unique, yet immediately recognisable, sound could be heard emanating from the back garden, followed by a very loud crashing noise.

'He's here!' Sally realised with a smile before dashing down the stairs to the back door. Larry followed; confused, but thankful that he didn't need to take Sally to the mirror.

"That," the Doctor began, scratching the back of his head with eyebrows raised, "that is a really... really..."

He found himself trying to describe what he was faced with in more abstract terms. Not only was such behaviour in his own nature, but it was the nature of any Time Lord. Arrogance, pomposity and intellectualism; all hallmarks of his race and although they were gone, he couldn't shake off some elements of their shared mentality. Whenever faced with something, it was a necessity to explain it in the most complex terms, and the faster he could do so the better. However when faced with something that was so figuratively and literally concrete, the Doctor found himself at a loss for those synonyms and run-on sentences he loved so much.

-

"That... really is a big... brick... wall." He observed, squinting up to the heavens. The wall seemed to reach heights unprecedented for the construction skills of any race in the universe. He rapped his knuckles on it and tried to feel around for some kind of hidden door. It was a bit of trite hypothesis, but as he looked in all directions, there was no other way of getting around the wall.

The only exit, it would seem, was behind him. The stench that lingered in the air was nauseating and it grew in intensity the closer he walked towards the glass. At least it appeared to be glass. The Doctor could see, and smell, right through the glass into Larry Nightingale's bedroom, but he had left, hopefully with the note. The Doctor couldn't help but smirk at his own ingenuity, writing the note for Sally on the moisture his breath left on the glass. He went to breathe on the glass again, but this time, it caused a ripple.

"Ohhh," the Doctor exclaimed in awe, "not seen this for a long time."

He swirled his finger around the glass briefly, causing more ripples before he went to push his arm through.

"Don't!" Came a cry, which immediately startled the Doctor. He spun around to see Emma running up to him, wrapping her chubby arms around his leg and tugging as tightly as she could. "You can't go through! You can't fly!" Humouring the small girl, the Doctor crouched down to her height and ruffled her hair.

"Maybe I can?" He said with a grin, "or maybe I won't need to?" The Doctor secretly thought himself as a bit of a maverick, or even a dare-devil. If he didn't focus on that 1 of hope, the silver lining that may just be invisible to the naked eye, or simply the most hare-brained schemes his mind could concoct, he probably wouldn't have lived for over 900 years! Granted, over 900 years and 10 incarnations, he had never attempted to flap his arms and successfully fly either, but there was a first time for everything, even a Time Lord. And with that, the Doctor darted through the glass.

"Woah!"

The second he slipped through the glass, the Doctor flung his arms back through to the other side. A gust of gale force winds hit him like a bullet through the darkness. Dirt and dust shot up his nose and down his throat and there was a familiar piercing scream racing through his brain. He was sent hurtling back through the glass and slided across the mist-covered floor. Coughing and spluttering, the Doctor staggered back to his feet and dusted down his jacket.

"Okay... So thinking happy thoughts doesn't quite work out here..."

"I told you!" Emma protested, "higher than the wall, faster than the wind and beyond the screams!"

"It's like I'm being dared to try leaving, whatever this place is," the Doctor began to think at a rapid pace, "it wants me to try running. Something tells me I was never expected here, much less wanted. And because I'm here, this place is falling apart at the seams. It wants to keep people away on one side, and it wants me to join them but if I try..."

"You're something different, something new." Emma muttered, with a childish curiosity.

"It's more than that," the Doctor told her, "I'm the last of my kind and it knows that. To this place, I shouldn't exist anywhere. Nobody survived the war and I should be dead."

"Oh, cry me a river!"

The Master stood on the other side of the glass in Larry Nightingale's bedroom, staring across at the Doctor and Emma with a mocking look of false sadness.

"Honestly, I thought the universe wasn't big enough for your ego, but then I send you into the gap and I figured, 'hmm, an empty space between order and chaos that goes on and on and on, surely he can find the time to get over himself?'"

"The gap? You mean-? How in the world did you-? What about-?" The Doctor stammered before slapping his forehead out of frustration, "the gap should only ever open up if the cosmos was so unbalanced that it couldn't support itself. It was sealed in the Time War! You were the one..."

"I was the one who sealed it." The Master finished the sentence, "Gallifrey's last dark secret, at the very root of the Untempered Schism. It was time-locked separately at the moment between the declaration of war and the moment the first shot was fired. A reality checkpoint in a sense. This way, the High Council was naïve enough to think that no matter who won or lost, they could just reset the entire time line of the universe to this point."

"But that's absurd!" The Doctor retorted.

"And yet, doesn't sound a little familiar?"

This couldn't be denied. The destruction of the paradox machine and the undoing of the Master's empire... Absurd or not, it had already happened; time had been reversed. Rubbing his eyes, he still felt like he was missing something.

"So what happened?" The Doctor still didn't quite understand the connection, "the paradox machine was destroyed and time reversed itself. Simple as."

"Exactly! Right to the point when the first shot was fired and the President's body hit the floor." The Master recollected, "the paradox machine was preset to keep that moment in mind. I'd planned the President's death from the moment I built it and do you really think I'd be so inept that I'd carry out this plan without an insurance policy?"

"But that doesn't change the most dangerous part!" The Doctor barked, getting as close to the Master's face as he could without falling through the glass again, "the universe needs to be out of balance for the gap to open! The universe will collapse and you should know more than anyone what happens to anyone who looks directly into the gap from the outside!"

"The entire universe, driven mad. Every creature of every species would go insane. They would all march to the drums Doctor, and nobody would be there to save them from themselves."

"Just use some common sense! You need bring the TARDIS here so we can seal the gap up again! It's not like back on Gallifrey, we could control it then, but now we only have one chance."

"So basically..." The Master began with a wry chuckle, "I now have you trapped in a state of perpetual flux forever, the universe is falling apart, I have your TARDIS to escape in and..."

"Okay, okay, no, you're absolutely right! Again!" The Doctor interrupted, "I mean, as far as evil plots go, letting an entire universe fall right on top of me is quite high up there in terms of effectiveness. You know all about the gap then?"

"Absitively posolutely!" The Master winked with brash confidence.

"You've read the manual?"

"Might as well written it!"

"So you know everything," the Doctor asked, a slightly taunting tone in his voice, "inside and out?"

"... Yes, I sealed the thing, didn't I?"

" And you're _sure_ you know everything?"

"Yes, everything!" The Master yelled, visibly frustrated.

"Alright then." The Doctor said with a shrug and a smile before sitting cross-legged in front of the mirror.

"All... right?"

"Mmm," the Doctor nodded, grinning, "A universe without me and, well, anything really! Hope you have a blast!"

Bemused, the Master just held up his arms and walked away from the mirror.

"Whatever." He snorted, as he disappeared from sight. The Doctor gave a wave as he let himself fall onto his back. For all the chaos that was no doubt happening outside the gap, it was incredibly peaceful here and the Doctor felt that he may as well enjoy it whilst he could. He then turned back to Emma, only to find her doll on the spot where she once stood. For all the peace that resounded through the gap, the Doctor could suddenly sense the shadow of chaos looming over his head. Oddly enough, he found himself hoping it was just the prospect of an entire solar system raining down on him and not something even more than that. He had a sore enough headache as it is.

-

Despite its very human (if old-fashioned) exterior, the TARDIS never failed to look out of place. Crash landing on top of the garden shed and rendering it in pieces, the big blue box seemed to radiate the silence of London in the night. Nothing and nobody was stirring, least of all Sally, who stood in awe of the time machine, despite already seeing it once before.

Larry was somewhat less composed.

"I had all my stuff in that shed!" He lamented, "I kept everything in there!"

"You mean, you kept some DVDs in the shed?" Sally deducted with a wry smile.

"DVDs, video tapes, Betamax, the lot and now..."

"Larry, don't you get it?" Sally dashed in front of him, almost jubilant, "the Doctor's come back!"

"How is that good, Sally?" Larry shouted back at her, "the Doctor would only ever come back here if there was something wrong! Can't you see that? We're in trouble because the Doctor's here! We need to get away!"

"Did you ever stop to think that that's why he's here? To take us away?" Sally took her arms away from Larry's grip, "maybe you're happy to live in a world where the next media gadget thing is all that matters, but the past is still alive somewhere out there. Up there, there's stars and planets and new life. Somewhere Larry, the future has already happened. And I want to see it!"

"You mean, you want to see the future," Larry uttered, in a melodramatic moment of moodiness, "with him."

Sally rubbed her eyes with her palms. What could she say to that? Larry was being so petty in his views. She had experienced a taste of adventure and had seen an alien form of life, but it wasn't enough. She'd spoken with people who remembered an extraterrestrial infestation of Britain at the time of the coronation. She'd listened with intrigue and wonder to stories of giant insects in space, an intelligent race living beneath the sea, and even dinosaurs coming back to life. Some people even had verifiable proof of parallel universes! Betamax? Who needs Betamax in 2007? With the Doctor, Sally could go back to when it was new! As she watched Larry sulkily shuffle his feet and stare at the grass, Sally knew that he had to finally tell him how she felt and that it was time for them both to move on. She'd been patient with him and his behaviour, but he needed help that she could provide, and she just wanted to get away.

"Larry, I-"

Sally was interrupted by the slamming of the back door. As they were lost for words at the sight of Harold Saxon walking towards them, the Master was equally taken aback by two people standing between him and the TARDIS. Only for so long though, as he pulled out his laser screwdriver and ordered Sally and Larry to raise their arms. 'Such weak resistance,' the Master said to himself, 'this will be easier than I thought.'

-

"I'm the Doctor, and who might you be?"

The doll stared vacantly back at the Doctor with vapid eyes and a pouting smile. Clad in Victorian clothing, its lack of response didn't really come as a surprise but as he sat and waited for the universe to fall into the chasm of this gap in time, the Doctor found himself eager for some kind of company.

"Victoria. How about that, eh?" He chuckled to himself, "be a doll and help me out here, would you?"

Pulling out his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor focused it at the doll and watched in amazement as it began to delicately break away into pieces until only the head was left.

"Oh, that _is_ brilliant!" He observed with wonder as he knelt down and picked up the skull in one hand. The left eye whirred and clicked in the same fashion as a camera, enticing the Doctor's curiosity further, "I wonder why it's always the head that's left?"

"You were new," Emma announced from behind the Doctor, "we had to keep an eye on you."

"You're a couple of years too late," the Doctor replied, standing up, "I've already had everything from living plastic to possessed children come after me and I'm still here to talk about it. So unless you're going to show me something new, just let me go and stop wasting my time because from what I've heard, I'm quickly running out of it!"

"How long?" Emma spoke, her voice becoming croakier and deeper by the second, "how long has it been since you saw a universe die before your very eyes?"

"Tell me who you are." The Doctor challenged Emma, gritting his teeth. Emma leaned her head back and stared upwards. The Doctor did the same and watched all the planets of the solar system gather above their heads. The liquid sky began to ripple and gurgle fiercely.

"This is the highest science, the end of the universe." Emma observed as her eyes began to glow brightly. Nonchalant, the Doctor shrugged his shoulders.

"Well," he began, "I'd agree with you on the highest science stuff, but if the universe is coming to an end, what's the point in keeping me alive?"

"You were new." Emma repeated, as the sky resisted the planets plunging into the gap.

"Or was I just unexpected?" The Doctor queried.

"We had to keep an eye on you." Emma reiterated, stationary in her stance.

"Because you know who I am. You know that a Time Lord can seal this place up again. You know that I can stop you."

Emma simply stared at the Doctor, cold and vacant. Narrowing his eyes, The Doctor couldn't believe what his instincts were telling him.

"You... _want _me to stop you. Is that why I'm here? Is that why you kept me alive?"

"This is our first test," Emma announced in a mechanical voice as drops of water and dust from the sky began to rain down on her and the Doctor, "we need to know who you really are."

-

"Who are you, really?" Sally asked, her voice full of surprising defiance, "is this what politicians stoop to after murder? Petty breaking and entering?"

Laughing to himself, the Master pressed the laser screwdriver against Sally's forehead as hard as he could and watched the confidence fall from her face. He glared over her and grinded the tip of the weapon against her forehead, eager to see how long the cat would hold her tongue. It would be such a shame if she were to die from holding her breath before he had a chance to strangle it out of her, but with the Doctor out of the picture, the entire planet was a slaughterhouse under the Master's control.

"L... Leave... Leave h... her..." Larry stammered, sweat dripping from his brow. The Master simply ignored him and continue to test Sally's spirit.

"Oh, I have a trail of dead behind me that's already long and bloody. Politicians, populations, planets, all reduced to ashes at the heels of my shoes. In fact, right as we speak, this pitiful rock you call home is crumbling and I'm going to watch it with the utmost pride."

"Not if we stop you first!" Sally blurted out, almost immediately kicking herself for being so stupid. The Master moved the screwdriver under her chin and raised her face up to his, giving her the same arrogant, lunatic smile he gave Francine Jones and enticing her with the same challenge.

"_Do it!_ " He taunted, running a hand tenderly through Sally's hair before yanking her head back, the thunder roaring almost as though it was approving, "_stop me!_"

Screaming out an unintelligible war cry, Larry jumped on the Master and struggled to pry the laser screwdriver from his hand as Sally dashed over to the TARDIS, only to find herself at a loss for what to do.

"Sally!" Larry shouted over, pinning the Master down on the grass, "get the door open!"

Her mind racing, Sally thought back over what the Doctor's note had instructed her to do. Find Harold Saxon? Check. Open the door and mind the gap? Her jaw opened for words that wouldn't come out. The door wouldn't open without the key! Sally tried kicking it and pulling at it to no avail. There was only one key and the Doctor had it, but he was trapped inside the mirror in Larry's bedroom; the same room which suddenly burst with a pulsating blue light, turning the boarded-up window to cinders. A high-pitched screech emanated from the room, but even that wasn't enough to stop Sally from running back inside. By any stretch of the imagination, she knew that running to the light was hardly the most intelligent option, but her imagination had been at breaking point ever since Angels stole her friends, Larry went mad and the Prime Minister taunted her with an over-sized battery. And as Larry turned to watch Sally go, he felt a surge of electric shocks radiate through his body, paralysing every bone and muscle in his body. Adjusting his tie as he watched Larry's limp body hit the ground, the Master got up and blasted the lock on the TARDIS door with the laser screwdriver. The door swung open and he strode inside, stopping only briefly to contemplate bringing Larry along as a hostage before instead deciding that he was worth just as much as a corpse, which the Master decided he would soon become, along with the rest of humanity.

-

Sally could not believe what she was seeing.

Upon opening the door to Larry's room, she could only watch with wide eyes as the neon-lit City of London appeared beneath her feet. The floor of the room had been eroded away to give a bird's eye view of the capital at midnight. Black taxis, red buses and people from all corners of the globe were no bigger than her index finger and in a state of panic as buildings and monuments started to fall apart and the Thames began to boil and flood throughout every district of the city. Too stunned to speak, much less act, she crouched down at the edge of the surreal perspective and held on to the door for dear life. Her eyes tightly shut out of fear, Sally was all too aware that the gap at her feet was gradually increasing in size, tearing apart the room even further.

-

The Doctor could not believe what he was hearing.

The familiar 'vworp vworp' of the TARDIS echoed throughout the gap and no sooner had he turned his attention away from Emma, did his closest companion materialise in front of him. It was a sight and a sound that he had never been happier to hear. That is, until the door swung open, and the Master staggered out, smoke pouring out behind him.

"Tell me," the Doctor began, with a knowing gleam in his eyes, "when you said you knew everything about anything about the gap, did you remember that it swallows up all forms of matter, Type 40 travel machines included?"

"And you didn't warn me about this because... why?" The Master replied, venomously.

"Because I knew you'd need me and I knew you'd bring the TARDIS with you when you did, but more importantly," the Doctor answered, throwing his coat on and tossing the head of Emma's doll back into his hand, "Emma and her friends get to find out just who I really am!"

Hurrying the Master back into the TARDIS and waving to a stoic Emma, the Doctor took a small fire extinguisher to the flames erupting from the console whilst instructing his most unlikely companion yet to hold the broken door in place. Pulling up a nearby panel covered with ancient post-it notes, the Doctor watched as the gap's path of destruction was mapped out before him. It was a complex pattern, but immediately familiar to anyone with experience of travelling through the capital. Emma's masters wanted him to stop them as part of their test and by plotting a course on the complicated, slow and unreliable routes of the London Underground, they had hidden the gap's presence from the human race, yet kept the collapse of time and space moving at a snail's pace to make it easier for the Doctor to follow it. Simple enough, _allonsy _and all that, but as the Master desperately tried to keep a grip on the TARDIS door, the Doctor couldn't help but wonder why he was just as afraid. Setting the coordinates for the Northern Line, the TARDIS stormed through the glass, the fury of a universe in disarray constantly threatening to break down its walls.

"So... Emma and her comrades. Know them?" The Doctor queried as the console room rumbled and jolted, racing through the deserted London Underground, decaying with the force of the gap.

"Not a clue!" The Master yelled back, "the girl was just there when the gap was opened but by that point, things were going so well I didn't think anything of it! Maybe she's just a lost girl or something?"

Watching the TARDIS escape, the lost girl walked over to the wall, pressed one side of her face against it and whispered to an unseen friend that the Doctor had escaped. As she heard the response to her report, she smiled wickedly and turned to face the heavens again as the planets began to fall faster.

-

As he slowly regained consciousness, Larry awoke to a scene of overwhelming chaos. Frozen with fright, he watched the dark clouds above him swirl around the sky in absolute disharmony whilst thunder and lighting clapped in the distance. More unnerving was the sight of his own home being lifted from its foundations and enveloped by a blue sphere from within. Through the furious storm of bricks and mortar, Larry staggered, screaming out for Sally who he eventually spotted, still clinging onto the door of his bedroom. He tried reaching out to her, but the irresistible force of the sphere was pulling Sally further away. Larry continued trying, until he found himself being pulled into the sphere. He and Sally held onto each other as the light became blinding. He could hear it again, the drumming, the laughter, the voices. Larry watched the Untempered Schism of the time vortex at its most furious. He wanted to turn away, but he couldn't. Once again, he was made to witness the bodies of children bursting into ashes. He watched the oldest race in creation cry and weep in agony as the fire tore through their city. He saw flying saucers explode in their millions and heard the screams of a race furious at their own failure to survive and their determination to go on, beyond death. And then, he watched the footsteps of the last man standing, striding through the ensuing chaos. No remorse on his face. And Larry knew what this man embodied.

Believing to be close to death, Larry made certain his last thought was of Sally and the short time they were together as lovers. Holding her head up to his, he took one more second to remember the scent of her hair, only to find it unfamiliar. The disaster and destruction around them had ruined his last chance to remember the happiest time of his life. If the Doctor had been here, he would've saved them and he would know how good life could be again. But even then, it was their own obsessions with the Doctor that drove them apart. Cursing himself, Larry realised how much time he had wasted watching the Doctor in his mirror, and how the enigmatic time traveller had stolen Sally from him.

_'Hate him. I'll never forgive him. I'll never forgive the Doctor! Never!' _Larry vowed and with that, through hot tears, he awaited their fate. At that moment however, he watched a darker shade of blue burst through the sphere and strike them down from the grip of fate. Sally and Larry collapsed down onto the grass as the TARDIS spun out of control over their heads and came to a crash landing in front of them! Slowly raising their heads up, they watched the TARDIS door open. Standing over them was the man who Larry looked up at with disdain and who Sally looked up to with admiration. However, both of them would have no qualms admitting that they were relieved when he offered them an outstretched hand and a look of fierce determination.

"Come with me if you want to live."

The pair dashed inside, but quickly stopped dead in their tracks. This was pretty common for the Doctor whenever anyone saw the impossibly vast interior of the deceptively small blue police box for the first time, but this wasn't Sally and Larry's first time. They had already been inside the TARDIS when the Weeping Angels had captured it. As the Doctor looked around as well, he realised that it wasn't the size of the TARDIS that had left them in shock, but the man at the helm.

"Ah," he began, trying to think of the best way to make introductions, "this is-"

"Harold Saxon!" Larry blurted out, taking cautious steps back towards the door, "you're working with him?"

"Excuse me, he's kidnapped me!" The Master shouted back, pointing at the Doctor.

"You killed the President and enslaved the planet!" The Doctor retorted, "I wasn't about to leave you on your own!"

"You turned back time, so it never happened! No harm, no foul!" The Master defended himself, whilst Sally and Larry looked at each other in confusion.

"But you still killed the President and now you're trying to kill everyone else!"

"And I'd be getting away with it too if it wasn't for these meddling-"

"Sally Sparrow!" The Doctor quickly turned his attention away from the Master and stepped over to the girl, who looked almost starstruck, "do you still have that red balloon?"

Eager to help, Sally searched through her coat pockets for the balloon and handed it to the Doctor, who quickly proceeded to blow it up and secure it with a knot.

"Now then... Umm..." The Doctor began and clicked his fingers in the direction of a certain grumpy looking young man in the corner of the room.

"It's Larry." He mumbled in a deadpan voice.

"Oh yes," the Doctor remembered from their meetings via the mirror, "Sparrow and Nightingale, of course! Any chance you could take this balloon and gently place it back in the hole in the floor to your left?"

"Bit beyond me, why don't you do it?" Larry answered back, moping. As the Doctor opened his mouth to reply, Sally butted in.

"Because in order to get the TARDIS back in the air, the Doctor needs to be at the controls in order to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!" She explained as both Time Lords and Larry listened in disbelief.

"She doesn't have an old watch in those pockets too, does she?" The Master asked, just as surprised as anyone.

"Sally?" The Doctor approached the London girl who somehow knew a piece of time travel terminology.

"I'm right, aren't I?" Sally asked, confident that she'd impressed with the knowledge she'd picked up during her time spent researching the Doctor.

"Well, half-right. Reversing the polarity of the neutron flow will get us back into the time vortex, as well do half a million other things depending on the situation," the Doctor babbled at a fast pace, "but even so, how did you even find out about that?"

"Simple, I signed up to your fan club, went to meets, got chatting on the message board..."

"Oh good grief." The Master rolled his eyes at the notion of a fan club for his rival. Larry simply continued sulking as Sally rattled off a number of names, terms and places linked to the Doctor, who just stood there, bemused.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm flattered," He said, stopping Sally in the midst of explanation, "but even so, what was all this research in aid of?"

"She wanted to meet you," Larry interrupted, resting his head against a pillar, "she saved the world once and now she wants to do it again. Instead, you've probably killed us all."

"Oh no, no, no, no, no!" The Master abruptly called out angrily, walking over and getting in Larry's face, "he's not taking the credit for my work! If anyone's going to kill you all, it's going to be me. The Doctor's got blood on his hands already, but as far as this pathetic, primitive race is concerned, I'm going to be the one to wipe you out!"

"Not that it's unheard of for politicians to kill innocent people," Sally spoke up, getting between the Master and Larry, shoving the former backwards a few steps, "but to do so with natural disasters and a time machine is just a bit over the top!"

Clenching his fist, the Master raised his arm to Sally only for the Doctor to calmly pull it back. Larry held onto Sally's shoulders as she felt slightly shaken by the prospect of another physical altercation with the man they knew as Harold Saxon, Prime Minister. Lowering the Master's arm, the Doctor stepped in between the humans and the Time Lord and decided that it was best to make introductions now before any further conflicts started.

"Sally, Larry," he began, "this man is a Time Lord, just like me. To you, this man may be Harold Saxon. To the rest of a fearful universe, he likes to be known as the Master."

Before Sally and Larry could react, the TARDIS began to shake once again as the Earth continued to fall apart beneath them. Quickly, the Doctor instructed his companions to help out.

"Larry! Put the balloon in the hole in the floor, carefully!" He barked with all the authority of an army major, "Sally, you may want to make notes because it's actually that red balloon that we need to keep the TARDIS flying!"

"A red balloon? Flies all this?" Sally laughed as she clutched onto the console.

"Well when we're in the time vortex, the TARDIS weighs practically nothing so it's a cheap and cheerful way of keeping afloat in a universe where spare parts for a time machine are impossible to come by, even when a temporal anomaly is swallowing up planets! Plus, since this is a time machine, I can keep it inflated for roughly a thousand years and you know the best part of all?"

"A red balloon is going to save the world!"

"Actually, I was going to say that red was my favourite colour, but you're absolutely right anyway! Now, to power up and out of the danger zone!"

"Anything we can do?" The Master uttered as Larry pointlessly held the now-secure balloon in place.

"Larry, hold on tight!" The Doctor advised before turning to the Master, "you, get started on a new lock for the door!"

As quickly as it had crashed, the TARDIS soared up through the storms and beyond the clouds. It continued on its flightpath until it was at a safe distance from the gap, which had almost consumed the Earth and its surrounding planets. From such a high vantage point, the Doctor could see the scale of this horror. It was like a gaseous shark's jaw, snapping and chewing angrily at the fabric of space. Its sole purpose was to conceal what it had devoured and freeze all movement, evolution and sense of time. Initially, the gap was controlled by the Time Lords themselves, to be used only to lock very precise moments in small amounts of space.

Without such restraint however, this was a monster in its own right. Rather than serve its original purpose, without any sense of moderation, it was attempting to digest the entire universe at this very point in time. The gap had grown in size from a small alternative world hidden in a bedroom mirror, to a reality checkpoint centred on Sally and Larry's home, and then it continued expanding via the London Underground. From there, it could be guided to the Thames, and to the oceans of the world, and then every country on every continent. It was a blind phenomenon, working purely on instinct and destroying everything in its path.

But not for much longer.

"Sally, Larry, cover your eyes until I close the TARDIS doors again. Master, keep the controls steady," the Doctor ordered with a deep, resigned breath, "time the universe learned who I am."

His eyes were shielded as asked, but Larry knew what he could see. Once again, a man walking through chaos with death's shadow trailing behind him. He could see the Doctor open up the TARDIS doors and watch over the dying universe with the disapproving look of the most vengeful god. He could feel it, the gap was quaking in fear of what it was faced with.

Hands in pockets, the Doctor leaned his head towards the gap ever so slightly and whispered a word, a name, to it. Such a name would fall deaf on the ears of any species other than Gallifreyan and so the Master was fully aware of what had been spoken, and he shuddered at the mention. It was a name he thought he would never hear again, and yet he had only heard it used once when he had first met the man that a fearful universe would know as the Doctor.

With this act, the gap calmly evaporated into nothingness and the Doctor closed the TARDIS doors, prompting Sally and Larry to open their eyes and return to the console, holding onto anything they could. The universe outside was in a hurry to recalibrate and stabilise itself, and the bumpy ride into the time vortex, away from the celestial reconstruction, was enough of a sign that nothing was going to wait for them to leave. Piece by piece, it was only a few seconds until the universe was returned to its original, much more peaceful condition, both in time and space.

-

"Like you said," the Master said smugly to the Doctor, as he attached the new lock to the TARDIS door, "it _was_ a pretty good plan."

"Oh yeah," the Doctor answered with a cocky laugh, "I mean, as long as we keep in mind that you lost control of the gap, couldn't fly the TARDIS away from the blast area and of course, you made the same mistake you always make, even just as recently as your whole Prime Minister shenanigans."

"And what's that then?"

"The gap would've consumed everything and everyone, yourself included. Once again, you wouldn't really dare to destroy the universe, because by doing so you'd kill yourself. And that's the one thing I know you could never do."

Struggling to find a retort, the Master simply shrugged his shoulders and sat down, retaining his arrogant grin.

"Not to mention," the Doctor continued, turning to Sally, looking quite pleased with herself, and Larry, looking as though he'd rather be anywhere else, "you just so happened to trap me in a house belonging to two of the most brilliant humans alive, big mistake that one! I guess the least I can do is give you both a lift home, how about that?"

Larry nodded enthusiastically and took Sally's arm, already intent on walking straight out of the TARDIS door. Ignoring him however, Sally had other ideas.

"I'd actually think the least you could do is take us on one more adventure," Sally suggested, smiling optimistically, "surely we've earned it after all this?"

"And I'm grateful Sally. You too, Larry," the Doctor replied, his voice full of doubt and concern, "but that's exactly why I think it's probably best you two went home. You need to understand, The Master is dangerous. You've seen how easy it was for him to infiltrate your government, kill the President of the United States and then go on to put the entire universe in a situation, where it all could've vanished forever. Adventure is one thing Sally, but I've seen one too many lives ruined by the Master's influence. I can't risk letting him endanger either of you."

"And you really think I'm that stupid?" Sally argued, "I mean, you've seen how good we are from when we had to take on the Angels with DVD easter eggs, and now we've managed to save the world with the help of a red balloon. You never know when you might need some help again, particularly with an angry politician on board! Whatever's out there Doctor, trust me; I can handle it."

The Doctor couldn't help but smile at the similarities. Sally Sparrow had all the determination and confidence of Martha and Jack, and just like Rose, she was full of desire to see the universe in all its shapes and forms. It would be deadly, the Doctor never lied to any of his companions, but it could be fun and he never faulted people who wanted to have fun.

"So Mr. Saxon, what say you?" The Doctor turned to the Master, "fancy a bit more company to make a lifetime with me just a little bit less unbearable?"

"Like I even have a choice." The Master scoffed, clearly disinterested as his eyes scanned the console room.

"Larry? Staying on for the ride?" The Doctor offered. Larry kept his head turned away, not willing to see the Doctor, knowing full well what a journey with him could lead to. Even so, he couldn't bare to leave Sally alone with him.

"Sure, whatever." He replied, melancholy. The Doctor and Sally looked back at the Master and Larry respectively and sighed in unison before sharing a laugh.

"Well, as long as one person's willing to crack a smile around here, welcome back to the TARDIS, Sally Sparrow!" The Doctor proclaimed with a grin, as he offered a handshake. Before Sally could accept it however, a loud knocking noise hammered against the doors of the TARDIS. The motley crew of the ship slowly gathered together on the ramp leading to the doors and watched as the knocking became more intense.

Knock-knock-knock!

"Who... or what's out there?" Sally asked, biting her lip.

Knock-knock-knock!

"It's death. I told you Sally, he's going to kill us all!" Larry exclaimed, watching the Doctor, who was equally bewildered when a tiny blue flame began to slide downwards between the TARDIS doors.

"Oh for crying out- He'd just fixed that lock!" The Doctor complained as the Master's handiwork hit the floor and a white light began radiating from underneath the doors.

"You said you wanted to find adventure, Miss Sally Sparrow," the Master recalled with a chuckle as the flame was extinguished and the TARDIS doors were slammed open by several figures in white cloaks and surgical masks. "I think adventure just found you."

-


	2. The Arecibo Sect

_25,000 years away, my homeworld burns. As distant as it sounds, we are all scarred by what transpired on the day we looked up at the stars and saw each one burst, one by one. Throughout the universe, from the Milky Way to the Screaming Nebula, our land was already talked about, but only in hushed whispers. It was a derelict, barren, charred waste of the gods' time. Long before the rocket struck its core, my homeworld was already known, far and wide, as simply 'The Dead Planet'._

_And when our saviour showed us beyond the stars, we left in search of the home he left for us. For our survival. No... Our rebirth. And he gave us, blessed us with, a message to guide us. The good word._

_25,000 years away, this was the beginning. In the beginning, there was the word. And the word was 'Arecibo'._

-

Marching through the TARDIS console room authoritatively, the infiltrators came to an abrupt halt once they had the main console surrounded. The Doctor held his arm out in front of Sally, whilst the Master cautiously watched his own back, and the wild-eyed Larry held back his panic. Looming over him, the intruders were broad-shouldered and intimidating in their fully-cloaked secrecy. Under their hoods, their eyes were vaguely visible from the glow of the TARDIS interior, but they showed no emotion. Out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor noticed another figure stride out of the light outside and into view. Although clad in the same uniform as his counterparts, a noticeable difference was a sky blue visor shielding his eyes and boots of audible steel, rather than the simple cloth sandals worn by the others. He stopped at the open entrance to the TARDIS and raised his head, seemingly asserting superiority amongst the others of his kind, who bowed their heads in response. The TARDIS crew looked around and at each other, puzzled.

"If they were hostile," the Master whispered first to the Doctor, "they would've attacked us already."

"If they were friendly," the Doctor arched his head back, "they would've knocked first."

"So..." Sally asked the Time Lords, "what do we do?"

The Doctor and the Master looked at each other, neither one wanting to be the first one to make contact. The Doctor, because he didn't want to unwittingly provoke an attack which would harm Sally and Larry, and the Master, simply because he didn't want to. With a deep breath, the Doctor opened his mouth with trepidation.

"Ta-"

Suddenly, Larry jumped in front of him and, stretching his arms up, gave a pathetic roar to the visored figure before quickly retreating back behind Sally, the Doctor and the Master, who glared at him inquisitively.

"It... The Angels would..." Larry tried to explain his spontaneity to no avail as his fellow crew-mates looked even more confused. Shaking his head, the Doctor turned back to face their intruder.

"Okay," he began, grasping the Master's arm and yanking him in front, "men in white coats, quite aggressive with doors, not particularly talkative, smell a bit like hospital food, I know what's going on here. Intergalactic funny farm, and not a moment too soon!"

"Oh, they'll never take me alive!" The Master protested, laughing and reaching into his trouser pocket for his laser screwdriver. No sooner had he aimed it at the Doctor's arm than did the opposing figure snatch the weapon from him and begin to study it in his hands.

"A laser device," he spoke, slightly muffled from behind his surgical mask, "functional and versatile. An advanced aid in self-defence."

"In the right hands." The Doctor answered back, relinquishing his hold on the Master. "So... You can talk?"

"But it's in English." Sally noticed, curious.

"Actually it's an alien language, the TARDIS is translating it for you." The Doctor quickly explained, much to Larry's shock.

"You mean, this time machine is in my head?" He shouted back in a burst of worry.

"I'm sure one more voice in your head wouldn't hurt, Larry." The Doctor answered back with a wink, causing Sally to stifle a laugh and Larry to slink back into a sulk.

"Speaking of voices though," the Doctor continued, "I can hear your voice perfectly and it's a _very_ ancient dialect. I don't mean to be rude, but how old are you?"

Rather than answer the Doctor, the figure walked over to Sally and raised a gloved hand in front of her face. As he let in a deep breath, his visor glowed intensely and a series of blips and bleeps could be heard. Sally felt no pain or fear during the practice until the visor dimmed and the figure pulled out a scalpel from within his cloak. Without hesitation, the Doctor dashed in front of a stunned Sally and stood face-to-face with their antagonist.

"Okay, I've seen enough! Breaking and entering is one thing," he challenged, "but _I'm_ the Doctor and on this ship, my shift never ends, so if you're thinking of cutting someone open, you can go do it somewhere else and on somebody else's time! Got that?"

"You cannot expect the Sect to leave when we have only just reached our destination!" Another one of this intruders spoke up, with a more gruff tone to his voice. Peering outside the TARDIS doorframe from the corner of his eye, the Doctor noticed that they were still suspended above Earth, its atmosphere slowly recovering from the havoc that the Gap inflicted on the planet.

"What do you want with Earth?" Sally asked the tallest figure, who kept his focus on the Doctor.

"For thousands of years, we have followed the message leading us to this planet and adhered to the instructions within." The intruder explained, raising his arm and pointing to the Earth, "before the war, we were so very close. But then, the words were lost and the Earth could not be found."

"You called yourselves a 'sect'," the Doctor pressed, "maybe I'm just jumping to conclusions, but isn't that a bit, I don't know, ominous-sounding for a scavenger hunt? And what message was this anyway?"

"My apologies Doctor." The intruder continued, with a gracious bow of the head, "my name is Professor Jhiaxus, leader of the Arecibo Sect and keeper of the Arecibo Message."

Suddenly, a trio of colossal metal clamps slammed onto both sides and the top of the TARDIS door. Before they could react, the anonymous members of the Sect drove slender sharp needles into the crew members' necks. In an instant, their muscles became numb and their brain signals were distorted. As Sally Sparrow hit the ground, her final blurred sight was of Professor Jhiaxus, directing his colleagues to raise the TARDIS. She saw a collection of vivid neon lights behind him and then, darkness.

-

When Sally awoke, she was greeted by the Doctor talking at a very rapid pace whilst doing a handstand against a pale blue, cushioned wall. Initially impressed, Sally was somewhat less-enthralled when she noticed that the Doctor's ankles were chained to the wall. Her feelings quickly shifted to one of utter confusion when she noticed that she was tied up in a straight jacket, bound by steel clasps and wired straps. As she shifted and squirmed, Professor Jhiaxus knocked on the wall-spanning window parallel to the wall.

"It would be unwise to struggle my dear," he advised, coldly, "your restraints are highly charged with a strong electrical current. Any constant attempts to break free will only result in your internal organs being scrambled and hence, useless to our cause."

"What did you do to him?" Sally shouted back, settling down, "what have you done to the Doctor? And where's Larry?"

"We have merely secured your friend with shackles. He seemed headstrong and could cause a disturbance in the ward." Jhiaxus explained, his voice full of calm, "his incessant talking however..."

Sally turned back to the Doctor and listened carefully. His speech was little more than jargon and waffle. Full of names, places and moments that she'd never heard of.

"... Draconia, Meglos, The Watcher, The Candyman, The Neutron Flow, Tobias Vaughn, The Lost Moon of Poosh, Klom, Klom, Klom, Cult of Skaro..."

And some she had.

"... Jelly babies, Weeping Angels, Totter's Yard, The Loch Ness Monster, Dinosaurs, Mummies, Maggots, Maggots, Maggots, Master..."

"As for the other two," Jhiaxus interrupted, "the ward's now far too full, but we found space in the cargo bay for them."

"Cargo... bay?" Sally repeated, concerned. Larry was in no fit state of mind for this kind of situation and with the Master down there with him, they were certainly more likely to cause trouble for Professor Jhiaxus than a babbling Doctor ever could.

And yet, as concerned as she was about Larry and the Master, the Doctor's sudden stream of word vomit had her thinking she'd already lost any chance of escaping the ward.

-

"About time! I've been knocking for ages here!" The Master moaned, looking through the peephole of the cargo bay door at one of Jhiaxus' men, "I believe I'm entitled to a phone call?"

"NO CALL!" The surly surgeon barked back from the other side of the door, inadvertently spitting on the peephole, causing the Master to jerk back suddenly in a rare moment of disgust. The guard then turned away and ignored the Master's attempts at grabbing his attention.

"At this rate," the Master let himself drop against the wall, "we'd be lucky to get our last supper."

"NO SUPPER!" The surgeon bellowed, overhearing the Master's bleating.

"Well then, how about a little _privacy?" _The Master shouted back, kicking the door with his heel.

"Do you... really think we'll die here?" Larry croaked, crouching in a corner of the cargo bay against a steel crate and rubbing his eyes. He was in desperate need of a good night's sleep, but then he had been sleep-deprived for a while. If he slept back on Earth, the nightmares would haunt him. And if he slept here, he was sure something would kill him. A solitary lightbulb flickered above him, swinging from side to side, each other knocking a second off of his life expectancy now that he'd been left for dead with a madman for company.

"No Larry Nightingale," the Master replied with a chilling, self-satisfied smile, "I think that _you_ will die here. I think your precious girlie housemate will die here. But the Doctor and I? Oh, we're the personification of 'forever', Larry. When people talk about eternity, they're talking about people like us."

"Wh... Wh..." Larry stammered, on his hands and knees, scared to stand in case he was leaving himself wide open from a shot with a laser gun or a screwdriver or something.

"What we are isn't important Larry Nightingale. Not anymore."

Suddenly sounding quite reflective, the Master walked over and sat himself down next to Larry, but didn't look at him. Instead, he looked up at the ceiling, at the light, almost entranced by his own memories.

"What matters is _who_ we are. Both of us, the last of the most ancient species in the universe. Gods, to a degree. Warriors, to a greater degree. But more than anything."

The Master grasped Larry's face tightly, clenching his shuddering jaw and looked directly into his eyes and uttered his next word without any sense of deception or remorse. Just the cold truth that Larry had suspected, but feared wouldn't be as true as his nightmares had shown.

"Murderers. Of the highest count." Larry's strained eyes began to release tears as the Master continued. "Two of the most powerful races massacred at the Doctor's hand. A thousand and one other races, unwilling victims of the ensuing chaos. Blood soaked hands and burned out suns, throughout time and space. War cries and weeping children. Fathers, sons, mothers, daughters, creatures, demons... Even lovers. Dead. And all in the name of a war he couldn't... even... win."

The grip on him relinquished, Larry clicked his jaw in and out of place for a few moments whilst running his hands through his hair. Murderer? Two of the most powerful races? A war throughout time and space? The Master looked at the floor, solemnly.

"And... what about you? What did you do that was so bad?"

"Wiped out two-thirds of the human race, beat up my hypnotised wife and had a statue of myself." The Master half-heartedly recalled with a shrug, "not that anyone remembers it, thanks to the Doctor and Martha Jones."

"And... who's Martha Jones?"

"Until I met you, the most annoying human I'd ever had the displeasure of speaking to." The Master muttered with a frown before feigning sleep on the floor, as cold as damp concrete and just as uncomfortable. Larry looked back up at the lightbulb and counted down the seconds once more.

-

At the front of the Sect's vessel, The Hub was a suitably sterile environment. The interior was filled with lightly tinted plastic walls and doors. A dainty piano could be heard from a nearby speaker, giving the control area all the ambience and silent tension of a surgery waiting room. Professor Jhiaxus made himself comfortable in a rounded stool and looked around at his brethren, fully aware of why there was so much tension in the air. Beneath their feet, the cargo that would rejuvenate their species dwelled. Frozen in refrigerated captivity, it was their last hope for survival.

Following his race's fall from the stars, Professor Jhiaxus was charged with research and development. That is, research into survival methods and developing clean methods of attaining such a goal. Bringing up a flat-bed panel from under his stool, Jhiaxus watched the culmination of his long search brood in the ship's chambers. Unaware of their new destiny because, quite simply, awareness was no longer a factor. Neither was morality.

Jhiaxus too was tense. Beneath his gloves, his hands were becoming clammy, even in the chilled temperature of The Hub. Would he be welcomed as a hero? Or would his epitaph read something far more sinister?

Running his finger along the edge of the panel, the monitor changed to an image of the TARDIS, still docked at the side of the comparatively gargantuan ship. After all these years, they were returning home.

"Professor Jhiaxus sir!" One of his men saluted, "the results have returned from the analysis of the spacecraft. They prove most fascinating."

"How so?" Jhiaxus responded, standing up out of his stool and marching over to another panel with his comrade. The panel lit up and whirred, almost with excitement, as the specifications of the TARDIS scrolled in small text across the screen. Even from behind his veil and visor, Jhiaxus could hardly contain his shock.

"Remarkable!" He exclaimed, as the full details of the TARDIS' time and space travel capabilities were unveiled.

"I would advise that you save your elation for the results of the scans we ran on the ship's crew, Professor Jhiaxus."

"You mean... They were conclusive?"

"_Most_ conclusive, sir!"

The monitor switched to detailed physical analysis of the Doctor and the Master. Every detail about them from their hair colours and writing hands, to their blood types and genetic ancestry. As one person's bloodline flashed before Jhiaxus, he felt a renewed destiny overcome him.

"Prepare to release the cargo! Bring the prisoners to the Surgery!" Jhiaxus ordered, and as his crew began to scramble excitedly, he could see his epitaph clearly. So proud. So perfect. Professor Jhiaxus. _Saviour._

-

As quickly as the lightbulb in the cargo bay abruptly burned out, the temperature in the hull dropped. Left in the dark, Larry stumbled around, searching for the Master until a foot slammed down on his hand. Gritting his teeth in pain, Larry looked up and saw the laser screwdriver hum and ignite in standby. Pointing it directly at the human's petrified visage, the Master raised the light back up to his face and grinned.

"Like I warned you Larry Nightingale; murderers."

-

"Ood... Styre... Perivale... Clapham..."

Sally sat cross-legged on the floor as the Doctor's rambling began to slow down. She had lost count of how long he had been talking to himself. Quite honestly, she was starting to get so comfortable she barely even noticed him. The padded walls were soft enough to sleep on and Sally found herself struggling to stay awake. Letting out a frustrated groan, she allowed her head to fall back into the wall and looked around. Not that there was much else to see, besides the other side of the caged door and the Doctor, still balancing upside down.

"The Master... The War Lord... Gallifrey... Exile... The 1970s..."

All of a sudden, there was silence.

Silence swiftly drowned out by an exasperated gasp of 'Eureka!' from the Doctor, startling Sally and waking her from her lucid state with a start.

"W-What, Doctor? Are you okay?"

"Better than okay!" The Doctor announced, "over 900 years and that was the first time I've ever collected my thoughts! Never really had a reason to re-organise, but now that I've done some spring cleaning, I know..."

"Know what?" Sally asked, confused as the Doctor squinted at her with a doubting look.

"Sorry Sally, could you move your head so I'm not staring up your nostrils?" He requested and Sally, rubbing her nose with her index finger just in case something was there that shouldn't be, tilted her head upside down and faced the Doctor.

"Any easier?"

"Thank you," the Doctor confirmed, "but anyway, the answer was in there somewhere but it's been so long since it happened and really, nobody in their right mind expected anything to come of it!"

"Come of what?" Sally asked again, laughing at the hypocrisy of a man who spent ages waffling to himself, talking about anyone 'in their right mind'.

"The Arecibo Message." The Doctor explained, "beamed out into space from planet Earth in the 70s for little more than kicks and giggles. It'd take 25,000 years for it to reach any form of alien life, much less get a response, but the message was simply humanity saying, 'Hello, here we are, fancy a cuppa?' Not that they really needed to get alien attention in the 70s mind you, plenty of them running around back then."

"Including you." Sally interrupted, eager again to display her recently discovered knowledge of who the Doctor was. The club meetings, internet forums and stolen government data files she'd been e-mailed by other 'fanatics' told her so much, that no introductions to the likes of long scarves and Lethbridge-Stewarts were necessary. The Doctor was left open-mouthed for a moment, before continuing.

"I just let them get on with it back then," he reminisced, "if I knew that it would just encourage a bunch of interstellar nutters with needles to come calling, I would've tried to cover it up or stop it somehow."

"But this Sect," Sally pondered, "how could they receive this Arecibo Message now? It's only 2007, you said it'd take at least 25,000 years. They'd need to come from the future or something, right?"

"Well at least initially, yes."

"'Initially'?" Sally repeated, but before the Doctor could reply, the cage door gradually opened and a pair of guards stood before them. Sally turned her head upright again, as the Doctor slowly, yet awkwardly, tumbled onto the floor.

-

"Professor Jhiaxus sir, we're ready to enter the Earth's atmosphere. Shall I accelerate?"

"Hold our advance," Jhiaxus instructed his helmsman as a giant screen revealed the serene sight of the world from a distance, "there is little point in approaching the planet until we have extracted the antidote. And besides, we are now carrying medical waste that must be disposed of properly first."

-

"Please!" Larry snivelled, clutching as much of his body as he could as he curled up in the brace position, "_Please!"_

The Master sneered with glee. 'If only all humans were as weak and quick to surrender as this one', he said to himself, full of delight at what he was watching.

"Wrong answer, Larry Nightingale." He spoke with a chilling fragility to his voice, as if it was seconds away from escalating into a scream, "one more chance."

The Master waved the laser screwdriver gracefully around Larry's shaking head like a magic wand, able to strike him at any second. He didn't have to threaten Larry at all. The malevolent grin, the watch of a cobra, the subdued psychosis. The sheer physical presence of the Master told Larry that, at any moment, he could cease to live and Sally would be left alone with two murderers in deep space. He couldn't allow that. He knew he had to stop him. But the Master wasn't his foe here. The sense of danger in the air and fear in his gut was. And Larry couldn't fight either of them.

"F... Fo... For th... the love..."

"I spy, Larry Nightingale, with my little eye, something beginning with 'M'." The Master taunted Larry, who swallowed hard and looked up.

"M... Master."

The former Harold Saxon gave a slight chuckle, before striking Larry furiously with the back of his closed fist. His face stinging, Larry felt death's finger press against the back of his skull.

"The correct answer," the Master told him, "was 'Master_plan_. Still, you were half-right, so whilst I'm still going to kill you, it's only fair that you receive a consolation prize."

Gripping his victim by the hair and yanking him back, the Master whispered to Larry with pure venom in his voice.

"I'll kill you now, so you don't have to watch me kill _her!"_

_-_

Thrust through the Hub's main doors, the Doctor and Sally took a second to take in its clinical appearance, before taking in a few more seconds for the surprise of the warm welcome from Professor Jhiaxus, tray in hand.

"I trust my guards looked after you well, Doctor? Miss Sparrow?"

"About as well as I'm used to when it comes to scavengers, Professor Jhiaxus." The Doctor responded, waving away the offer of a glass of sparkling something-or-other, "although trying to loosen my tongue with whatever that stuff is, that's a new one."

"It's for both celebratory and medicinal reasons," Jhiaxus explained, "we can't have the two of you decay before our victory."

"Decay?" Sally interjected, "why would we decay? We've lasted this long on your ship and if you're heading for Earth, global warming's hardly _that _severe!"

"Then consider yourself blessed Miss Sparrow," Jhiaxus retorted with a wry chuckle, "at least you won't suffer much longer from the ironic causes of your own planet's death. Neither of us will. Except, of course..."

"When did you figure it out?" The Doctor asked, grim in the face and in his mind. Memories of Gallifrey's destruction beating away at his conscience, as they had done time and time again since the end of the last great Time War.

"At first, we heard a whisper and then the gates were opened for us. I knew it could only be a Time Lord who could release us from our... hibernation, shall we say?"

"Doctor," Sally turned to him, putting the pieces together in her mind, "the Sect appeared just after..."

"Just after I closed the Gap," the Doctor finished, "you were time-locked? Since when?"

"We lost track of time, shortly after we departed, we..."

Jhiaxus turned his back to the Doctor and Sally. The agony of the memories was torture enough, but the inability to cry, to grieve properly, for the lost was too much.

"Jhiaxus?" The Doctor spoke, knowing that something was wrong. Sally motioned to go and comfort their captor, but the Doctor held her back.

"For a while... We... counted the fallen, as they fell. But it was too depressing... tracking the passage of time by the number of corpses on my ship."

Jhiaxus threw down the drinks tray, capturing the sudden attention of his crew.

"Under _my_ command!"

"I'm sorry," the Doctor consoled Jhiaxus, who was struggling for breath, "I'm so sorry."

"Disease. Hunger. Paranoia. Fear. And eventually, madness." Jhiaxus continued, close to choking on each word he uttered as the list of the dead raced through his brain, crippling his already faded conscience, "they trusted me to believe in the word of Arecibo. To lead us to the land that was promised to us."

"But your followers were dying around you," the Doctor concluded, "there was no way you would all survive the 25,000 years needed to reach the Earth. So you took your ship into natural stasis."

"The Gap was our sanctuary and now, just as it was foretold, we have reached the birthplace of Arecibo. The planet Earth. The world of survivors. And our new motherland!" Jhiaxus' words escalated into a triumphant cry, complemented by roars of approval from his crew. Striding away from the Doctor's arm, Sally took steps towards Jhiaxus, defiantly.

"Leave my world alone!" She shouted and as she did, Jhiaxus' arms, raised in pride, began to lower, "I'm sorry for what happened to your people Professor Jhiaxus, we both are, but the Earth is my race's planet, the _human_ race. And we're not going to stand by and let cowards, who hide behind masks and veils and visors and whatever else, take it! Right, Doctor?"

"Ah..." The Doctor began, scratching his head, "yes, absolutely, what she said. There are a million worlds out there, Jhiaxus. And this Arecibo message, it was only ever more of a 'Let's meet the neighbours' rather than an invite to an overcrowded house party. I can take you all to a vacant planet, you can live there in peace, but the second you step on that planet's soil, you might as well declare war, and I will stop you before the first shot is fired!"

"Yeah!" Sally delightfully seconded the Doctor's speech, pointing at Jhiaxus, who still had his back turned. After a deep sigh, Jhiaxus began to give a scratchy laugh.

"Oh fear not Doctor, there will be no war. But there will most certainly be a vacant planet."

With that, Jhiaxus lifted a hand to his face, leading to quiet chatter amongst his crew and then a collective gasp as he threw his veil, visor and surgical mask to the floor, the visor shattering upon impact.

"As for you Miss Sally Sparrow, feel your fear thrive!"

With that, Jhiaxus spun around and revealed his face to Sally. Frozen to the spot, her lips trembling, the Doctor rushed to her side and even felt a slight sense of horror at what he saw. Slender shards of steel, tape and string were all that were holding Professor Jhiaxus' face together. Ripe with the stench of raw meat, his face was devoid of fat, muscle or any definition. His cheeks had been sliced and through the openings, Sally could see how paper-thin his skin was. His lips were crusty and dry, and his eyes lifeless and grey. Where his nose once was, a small metal panel had been placed. As Jhiaxus spoke, he showed eroded teeth and a dry, shrivelled tongue.

"Look, Sally Sparrow! See the price paid for survival!"

Sally wanted to look away, but couldn't take her eyes off of it. It was too terrifying. And the smell... It was unbearable.

"25,000 years. And you had to survive. And you knew, Jhiaxus." The Doctor told his snarling adversary, "you knew there was only one way to relieve yourself of the guilt that came with so many of your crew dying on your watch. That was to take them with you to the promised land, in the most unholy way."

"I carry the DNA, the flesh, the essence, of 42 of my kind, Doctor! Soon the organs, the bones, the blood of the human race will make us all whole again! I am their saviour, the Arecibo messenger! And the two of you, will help guarantee survival for the rest of the loyal, or die resisting!"

As his crew cheered their leader on, the Hub's doors were blown open by an instantaneous blast of furious energy. Through the resulting hole, the Master marched onto the deck, clutching an unconscious Larry by the back of his neck with one hand and wielding the laser screwdriver with the other. He strode towards Jhiaxus, twitched slightly at his appearance and dropped Larry in front of him.

"Breaking doors seems to be becoming a habit with you," the Doctor told the Master, who faced him with a cocky smile, "probably shouldn't bother asking, but I'm hoping that sacrificing humans... Habit, too?"

"Not a habit no, believe it or not" the Master answered, confidently, "it's just that this one wouldn't stop moaning and crying and frankly, it was a little bit sad, so I decided it'd be best to put him out of his misery." With that, Sally ran at the Master and pounded on his chest, warm tears streaming down her face.

"But to _kill _him? What for? Tell me, what for?"

With a hard shove, the Master sent Sally stumbling back into the Doctor's waiting arms. He then stood beside Jhiaxus and handed him the laser screwdriver.

"Why let my hands get so dirty on someone so worthless?" The Master coldly replied, "this is just a small token of my appreciation for my client, Boris Karloff here!"

"You two... know each other?" Sally asked, almost surprised that she was doing so out of disbelief, given what she's seen and knows of the Master.

"Oh, we go back a long way, Professor Jhiaxus and I! Or rather, we will go back a long way in, say..."

"25,000 years time." The Doctor stopped the Master in his tracks, "someone had to open the Gap for Jhiaxus to enter it. One of your sudden departures from the frontline of the Time War, I presume?"

"Everyone needs a break sometimes, Doctor!" The Master irreverently protested, "some have a Kit-Kat, some have a decaff, I... Well, I just like to help out those in need."

"But what for? You're hardly the good samaritan type! And this... it's barbaric!" Sally yelled, furious as the Master simply looked at her with disdain.

"I've been doing this for more years than you can contemplate, blondie," he chastised, "To pansy fangirls like you, it's barbaric. To people like Jhiaxus and myself, men who dream of conquest, it's a means to an end."

"That doesn't answer her question, Master," the Doctor challenged, "if this plan is masterful enough to live up to all this hype of new worlds and such, why aren't you bragging about how it eluded me for so long?"

"And ruin the fun of watching you find out for yourself?" The Master mocked, "why hasn't your curiosity killed you yet?"

All of a sudden, the Hub shook violently as everyone other than Jhiaxus struggled to keep upright. The thrusters of the ship roared as the Doctor held Sally close to him and Larry started to awake from unconsciousness. Ecstasy all over his visage, the Master stood at the helm and watched as the Earth came ever closer. Jhiaxus barked for the cargo to be released and saluted the resulting debris. The Doctor stared, mortified, whilst Sally held back nausea at the sight of humanoid entrails and remains began to drift off into space.

"We have made plenty of room now for the human race Doctor," Jhiaxus proclaimed, victorious as his ship approached Earth, " and your Time Lord body will provide useful for research into further survival!"

"You're not talking about research Jhiaxus, this isn't even experimentation!" The Doctor shouted over the engines, "this is butchery!"

"For survival!" Jhiaxus announced, raising his fist to the admiration of his peers and the Master, who applauded the giant. As the Doctor looked down at Sally, who was tending to the disorientated Larry, he became immediately aware of the folly of his ways. Not only as a supposed 'renegade', but as a responsible survivor himself. The last of the Time Lords. He took Sally and Larry in without a second thought, a day after the year that never was. He took them into the TARDIS with a psychopath. Another Time Lord, another renegade, and another survivor. But far from responsible. The Doctor watched him win once already. And that was once too many, even for a Time Lord's lifetime. In a moment, the Doctor darted to Larry's side, reached into the young man's pocket and pulled out...

"Murder!" Larry screamed, uncontrollably, "the murder weapon!"

Jhiaxus and the Master turned to the Doctor, who simply slapped his forehead at Larry's outburst. Whilst Sally kept her housemate quiet, the Doctor stood up and aimed the sonic screwdriver directly at Jhiaxus.

"Let me guess – So useless and so pathetic, you didn't even bother to check his pockets?"

"Your weapon is harmless Doctor," Jhiaxus sneered, "your head will be my victory trophy!"

With that, Jhiaxus went to fire the laser screwdriver! However, the Doctor did not even flinch. Nor did he the second time Jhiaxus attempted to activate the Master's weapon. Or the third.

"I've already tried it Jhiaxus," the Doctor advised him as the Master slyly stepped away from the confused professor, "the Master's pretty selfish when it comes to his gadgets!"

The Doctor pointed the sonic screwdriver at a control panel and after a fit of vivid sparks, the Earth began to shrink on the monitor at a rapidly increasing pace!

"What have you done?" Jhiaxus roared at the Doctor, helping Sally and Larry to their feet, whilst the ship jolted violently.

"Rule of thumb for an ugly baddie with a spaceship, Jhiaxus," the Doctor said as the three of them staggered to the damaged doors of the Hub, "never turn on your thrusters when someone with a sonic screwdriver is looking!"

With a wink, the Doctor led Sally and Larry through the doors as Jhiaxus cursed his name. Looking around for directions to the docking bay where the TARDIS was kept, Sally tried to speak to the Doctor as she ran.

"When did... you slip... Larry... your sonic screwdriver?" She asked, gasping for air.

"On the TARDIS, second I realised they'd be more interested in something a bit more rare than a human! They'd scan a Time Lord, but why waste time with a human when they've got billions of them below already?" The Doctor replied, in arrogant jest.

"Ah... so you're... just that special?" Sally answered back with a laugh.

"You joined my fan club, you tell me!" The Doctor laughed back, as they finally walked straight into the TARDIS, secured as any other ship would be, not that it proved a problem as the Doctor dashed around the controls.

"Must admit though," Sally began, "I was hoping for a bit more epic conclusion to my first trip in space than the old sonic screwdriver switcheroo."

No sooner had she finished her sentence did a barrage of explosions rampage down the corridor, prompting the Doctor to slam his fist down on the panel and allow the doorless TARDIS to dematerialise seconds before the flames reached it.

"No, no, no, no, no!" The Doctor repeated in frustration, "I sent them in reverse gear, but they're going too fast, the ship's structure won't hold!"

"Is that such a bad thing?" Sally asked, as the Doctor looked up at her, startled, "I mean, Jhiaxus... He was evil, right?"

"No Sally," the Doctor told her, "there's nothing evil about wanting to survive. His methods were just misguided. Time for one stop though!"

-

As he, along with his shipmates, writhed in the agony of the flames, Jhiaxus reached up to the Master, who towered above him. Jhiaxus' legs were too fragile for the fire, and it quickly spread up to the professor's torso. Expressionless, the Master just stared down at him.

"Please!" Jhiaxus begged, the pain pulsating through his frail form, "we need to survive!"

The Master got down on his knees and took back his laser screwdriver from Jhiaxus' hand. He shrugged his shoulders and smiled as he stood back up and the TARDIS materialised behind him.

"Only the strongest." The Master said as he stepped backwards inside the blue police box. As Jhiaxus watched him go, he heard a familiar whisper in the air that was soon disturbed by his own scream. And then, there was peace.

-

"Jhiaxus?"

"Doctor?"

"Don't try to open your eyes, Jhiaxus!"

"Sally Sparrow?"

"I'm sorry Jhiaxus. Your vision is the one thing the Sisters of Plentitude say they can't repair." The Doctor explained, as he and Sally stood over Jhiaxus' ward bed. His entire body was wrapped in bandages, with a small opening for his lips, and arms and legs of steel were being constructed by the anthropomorphic nurses.

"My... My crew! Where are they?"

"We only had so much time Jhiaxus, your ship was crumbling into ashes from the flames when we saved you, but as for the rest..."

"The mission... I failed them." A solemn Jhiaxus croaked.

"You misunderstood the mission, Jhiaxus," Sally consoled him, "the Arecibo message was an invitation to meet the human race, not to invade it."

"Ironic thing is, the universe would probably get along so much better with Earth if the Arecibo message was understood better." The Doctor stated, "but you let someone corrupt it for you Jhiaxus, even though your heart was in the right place."

"I... Why did you save me?"

"We're both survivors. I couldn't let you go down at the hands of a screwdriver, could I?" The Doctor chuckled, as Jhiaxus managed a weak laugh before wincing in pain, "just get some rest. You brought you to a perfectly good place for that... Well, for the next few thousand years anyway. I think you'll like it."

"Where am I, Doctor?"

"New Earth, Jhiaxus. A couple of light years off, but you've reached your new home. Rest up, and make the most of it." The Doctor smiled, as did Jhiaxus.

"Welcome to the promised land!" Sally called to the professor, as she turned and headed out of the ward. The Doctor began to walk after her, but Jhiaxus called him back.

"I can't... undo my sins, Doctor."

"Nobody would ask you to Jhiaxus," the Doctor reassured him, "it was more the Master's fault in the first place."

"Doctor..." A weary Jhiaxus whispered in a low voice, "the Master only opened the Gap. He didn't deliver the message."

Briefly, the Doctor stopped, trying to contemplate what Jhiaxus had said. He considered pressing the issue, but as he watched Jhiaxus in his current state, he saw the millions of wounded from the Time War, and how they had to keep on fighting for survival regardless. Finally, someone didn't need to fight for it. The Doctor gave a nod to the Sisters and pulled the curtain on Jhiaxus.

-

"I'm going to ask you one more time!" The Doctor ordered, "what in the name of all things great and small was that entire situation about?"

Ignoring his nemesis, the Master instead opted to whistle and spin his laser screwdriver around in his hand. Leaving Larry rocking in a corner next to the newly-repaired TARDIS doors, Sally stepped over to join the Doctor, arms folded.

"And what was the point in giving Jhiaxus your screwdriver, when you knew he couldn't use it anyway?"

"I just needed him to hold the emo kid hostage for a few minutes!" The Master retorted, rolling his eyes, "It's hardly my fault if he decided he'd rather play with fire instead... Shame he had to get burned though, isn't it?"

Suddenly, noticing the sonic screwdriver on the console, the Master flipped his laser screwdriver once and with a crackle, the Doctor's screwdriver burst into a diminutive flame and sizzled on the console, destroyed!

"What'd you do that for?" The Doctor shouted, "for heaven's sake, first the TARDIS doors and now you owe me a new screwdriver! What's wrong with you?"

"Just showing Miss Sparrow how to handle it like a pro." The Master answered back, with a wink at Sally who immediately recoiled in disgust.

The Doctor's response to the Master's cheeky grin was a solitary raised eyebrow and a monotonous murmur, before he began flicking a series of switches.

"Can we be done with the third degree now?" The Master demanded, "I've got some places I'd like to visit, people I'd like to meet, I mean I've never even been to Barce-"

"Lor." The Doctor interrupted, leaving the Master open-jawed.

"I... beg your pardon?"

"The prison planet. They've wanted your head on a silver platter for a while now. And after these last few little incidents, I'm going to hand you over at last."

"To... Lor?" The Master stammered with a nervous laugh, "aren't you being... hasty?"

"I don't think so, no." The Doctor replied, keeping his eyes on the controls, "a place you've never been before, people you have yet to meet, and all the raw meat dinners your stomach can handle!"

"Well if we're going to Lor, Doctor," The Master said, leaning close to the rival Time Lord, "I want it on the record that it was your decision to do so!"

With that, the Master slammed his fist on the panel and sent the TARDIS on its way. As the Doctor wondered about the cryptic remarks he'd heard over the last few hours, Sally was overcome with concern for Larry. Ever since the Arecibo incident, he had only gotten worse. Biting his nails and muttering to himself, Larry's head was pounding to a different beat than any he'd heard before, but to one who sat on the sofa and stared at him thoughtfully, it was all too familiar.

-

_Next Time_

_-_

"Remember when I said Lor was a 'prison planet'?" The Doctor confessed, "well by 'prison planet', I meant the tenth level of Hell."

-

"An immeasurable death count can only lead to one sentence!" The judge proclaimed as he slammed down his fist on the podium, "a death, most gruesome."

-

"How did that get _here?" _The Doctor and the Master both asked, knowing that nobody in the universe could possibly answer.

-

"Seems we have a cellmate..."

-

"An even bigger turncoat than you!" The Doctor said to the Master, "and just as good at hiding."

-

"Which betrayal hurt more I wonder," she whispered into the Doctor's ear, with a seductive chill, "that of your hearts, or that of the Time Lords?"

-


End file.
